Feb 11, Feb. 25, March 11, April 8, April 22, May 13. Time 3:30 - 5:00. Meeting
room will be confirmed - try to keep it in Nanticoke A.

Retreat January 21 and 22 - likely to be Ocean City venue. Team and reading
assignments were distributed by the Chair. The final agenda will be determined
by the Retreat Agenda sub-committee.

Tentatively:

Wednesday morning: Meet on team assignments and report back to group.
Each member should look for a model that you would like to bring to the
team time.

Thursday morning program including a 1 hour presentation and interactive
discussion.

Additional topics to be discussed at retreat include:

-Possibility of writing proposal for an Asheville 98 team.

-Begin to look at possible models of other programs. Part of the retreat
focus will be on 'how do others do it?"

Increased interest in the GenEd task force from different sources including
Student services. As the process progresses, others could be brought in to
contribute including student services, publications, individual feedback.

Campus feedback on the listing of attributes was presented. Statements include:

-Suggestion to include phraseology on citizenship and voting.

-The 'Broad Base of Knowledge" phrase was critiqued as to whether it is
misconstrued to be knowing facts. What about a statement about exposure
to great ideas and classics.

-What does a 'variety of media' mean?

-Where is the understanding of basic procedures of mathematics?

-What is the role of Gen Ed- what should or should not it be? Include
competence in a academic discipline, be a set of guiding principles.

The feedback statements indicate that there is some miscommunication about the
purpose of the document and the target audience. This needs to be clarified.

Issue discussed: Should we offer 'values free' education? No - the Strategic plan
is very value oriented. But is Gen Ed responsible for creating value based
education?

What do you do with the attributes once done? Go to the faculty at large for
discussion and agreement. Provide input meetings to clarify what we mean and
try to tailor the document with as little redundancy as possible. Provide it as a
starting point for discussion.

What level of support should we exhibit about our document? We are
representative of the faculty community and the issues that we grapple with now
will also arise within the university community. We should try to obtain
committee consensus by the end of the year.

Create a writing team to draft and refine the attributes better than what we hurried
to get out for the Strategic Plan. Keep in mind that:

- Attributes are shared by Gen Ed and the major.

- Gen Ed is not an infringement on the major but more like a partnership.

- Eliminate the detail to get the attributes out.

- Large group action does not flow as well as smaller writing teams.

- Spend the afternoon at the retreat reviewing the written document

- Address the capability and skills of an SSU grad.

- Writing team will be: Kathleen Shannon, Bill Zak, Greg Cashman, George Whitehead. Anyone else who is interested is welcome to participate.

Asheville was explained: Must write proposal and be selected to attend. Offers
private working time to develop time lines, courses, assessment etc. with the help
of 6 to 10 different consultants. Entire process is individualized.